Nice outbreak of good deeds in Swansea. Over the weekend we had the heartwarming tale of the Swansea FC footballer Angel Rangel who took out food for homeless people. Now the South Wales Evening Post tells the story of snack van owner David Hopkin, who was inspired by Rangel and has been traipsing around the Welsh city handing out a free burger and a free drink to the needy.

Meanwhile, a rarer outbreak in the south-west now. A bit of sun at Taunton services making the hills glisten – until now during this snowy spell it's been steel grey skies. The services is full not of travellers but builders. Turns out you can't lay concrete when it's so cold. So there's lots of house and road builders drinking coffee and telling tales of winters past.

A reader, parsifalbear, has more ammunition for my one-man campaign to end whingeing about Britain being unable to cope with snow. They write:

I spent six years living in British Columbia and I have to say I can see little difference between the ill-preparedness of the British and the Western Canadians when it comes to snow.

Vancouver Island is typical of this. They get moderate to heavy snowfall throughout much of the winter - though it does vary, or did in the years I lived on the island - but rarely do they grit highways beforehand, and never do they grit lesser roads until it's too late. Power outages are very common because BC Hydro never bother to trim the trees or cut down dangerous branches until it's too late, and the weight of the snow brings them down very quickly. I've known power outages last for well over 20 hours. It doesn't take a foot of snow for it to happen either. Schools close, shops don't open regular hours and so on. There isn't a public transport network as such on many parts of the island - but many roads do remain impassable for days.

Don't bet on Canadian drivers - with their winter tires - being safer drivers either. The last winter I was there, a woman decided to skate round a corner at high speed and drive into a gas station demolishing not just the gas pumps but half of the store that went with it closing it for days.

Earlier we featured AA advice to clear packed snow from your car before driving. Helen Pidd now informs me that she's just learned that if you don't do so it's actually illegal, thanks to the tweet below.

I never knew this but they're correct. Section 229 of the Highway Code, part of the 'Driving in adverse weather conditions' mini-chapter, reads:

Before you set off

you MUST be able to see, so clear all snow and ice from all your windows

you MUST ensure that lights are clean and number plates are clearly visible and legible

make sure the mirrors are clear and the windows are demisted thoroughly

A field mouse in the snow! Eating grated cheese!

This is not just the best snow picture you'll see today, but something of a Guardian exclusive. A neighbour of my colleague, Maev Kennedy, took the photo in yesterday in her back garden in St Margarets, west London. Maev reports seeing lots of fox tracks in the snow this morning, and is hoping for the best.

A field mouse eats grated cheese in a garden in St Margarets, west London. Photograph: Jane Storey

For some students the sudden closure of their school has brought particular problems – they were scheduled to take GCSE or A-level papers today. Luckily, it seems most have been able to do so, with some schools even opening just for pupils sitting papers. A spokesman for the exams watchdog, Ofqual, said:

The vast majority of exams are going ahead as scheduled. The message to send to schools and colleges is to keep in touch with your exam board, and let them know what the situation is.

Peckham Rye was a bit of disaster zone this morning train wise... however the buses did a sterling job as ever. Luckily my employer is fairly enlightened and has encouraged us to work from home.. cup of tea by my side, duvet on the office chair. Fairly happy with life.

Fans of Bradford City and Aston Villa can rest easy - their crucial Capital One Cup semi final match tomorrow is set to go ahead despite the weather.

At the moment there are no snow showers predicted for the areas around Villa Park between now and kick off (7:45pm) Tuesday evening.

In a statement on the Villa website the club said: "Villa are confident that the Capital One Cup semi-final clash with Bradford will go ahead as planned.

"As everyone knows, there has been snow over the past four days.But the club would like to advise fans that it's all systems go for the second leg clash on Tuesday.

"Villa Park's pitch is in fantastic condition while the surrounding areas are clear - and being cleared if there is further snow. As is always the case with inclement weather, we also advise fans to plan their journey carefully."

East Midlands and Leeds Bradford airports remain resolutely closed, with both posting recent updates. At the former the runway is still shut with no change expected before 2pm at the earliest. For Leeds Bradford are still promising the runway clearance will only take "a short period" but this has been put back till at least 12.30pm.

Some more snow photos

A plane takes off from a snowy Heathrow airport this morning. Photograph: Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images
A man walks across a snowy Horse Guards Parade in London Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
A man walks his dog in the snow in Gunthorpe, Nottinghamshire Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA

Fraternal greetings to the Northern Echo's parallel live blog, which is reporting that the weather has left 2,000 homes without power in Sedgefield, County Durham and more than 800 homes in the same position in Malton, North Yorkshire. The paper quotes Northern Grid as saying:

We have staff on site right now but the weather there is hampering our efforts.

Some scary-sounding news via the BBC, with a fortunate outcome – a bus carrying 20 primary school children and three adults slipped off a steep snow-covered road at Abercarn in Caerphilly. All on board escaped injury.

Drivers must clear the snow off their windscreens, lights and tops of their cars before setting out. This morning we have spotted lots of 'snowman cars', which are cars driving along with piles of snow on their tops.

I saw one sports car this morning on the M3 with almost a snowman of its roof but the dangerous thing was that it was being followed by a motorcycle. The hardened snow could have been a real hazard, had it fallen off in the path of the motorcycle.

"We have also seen drivers peering out of small openings on their windscreen as if they were driving a tank. The other issue is the number of cars with their lights and indicators compacted with hardened snow.

Drivers need to take a broom to clear excess snow off their vehicles before setting out.

As a regular cyclist (though not today) I'd fully endorse that. It might almost seem comical but the idea of being hit by a mass of compacted snow as you ride along the road is very frightening.

King said the AA had found most main roads well gritted and passable, but warned that some residential streets were "like skating rinks" due to frozen snow and slush.

A schools update from the east of England via the Press Assocation: they report that 279 schools are closed In Norfolk, about 200 in Suffolk, a similar number in Essex and more than 100 in Cambridgeshire.

Police in Kent are investigating whether a 25-year-old woman found dead in the snow in Deal could have collapsed after a night out. Her body was found by a dog walker early yesterday morning.

A spokesman said:

There are other possibilities we are looking out but one theory is that this is a tragic accident where a young woman was on her way home from a night out, but she didn't make it to where she was staying. We don't know if that was because of the cold, or she slipped or she was drunk or she became ill.

Wisps of snow in the air near Bath, where I'm starting off this morning. No sign of any thaw – many side roads now solid ice. But lots of schools that were off on Friday are back in today. Looks like its back to normal for almost all schoolchildren in Bath, Bristol and South Gloucestershire.

Another day off for many children across the Severn Bridge in Wales. In Blaenau Gwent, one of the worst hit areas in the valleys last week, it looks like around half of schools are closed again. Difficult driving there - one lane closed on the M4 Severn Crossing because of the snow and ice.

Met Office predicting another system of rain, sleet and snow heading to the south-west of England tonight and tomorrow. And more for the south and east of Wales over that same period.

Couple of positive snow thoughts. Lovely the way it brings people together. We spent the weekend sledging with loads of neighbours we hadn't seen for ages – usually all too busy going here there and everywhere of a weekend.

And if I may be forgiven an bit of nature notes: great to see wildlife that usually aren't around - flock of fieldfares arrived in the garden to pick berries off the rowan tree.

Steven writes: 'Sheep in snow always remind me of the cover of my old Penguin edition of Far from the Madding Crowd.'
A wintry graveyard.
Steven writes: 'No sign of a thaw in the hills around Bath - and wisps of fresh snow in the air.'

The airfield at Heathrow is fully operational with all runways, taxiways and stands clear.

The schedule for today has been reduced by 10% in order to cope with the low visibility conditions expected from 1600 this afternoon. Low visibility means that, for safety reasons, there needs to be a bigger gap between aircraft. Because Heathrow runs at almost 100% capacity there is no slack in the system and flights unfortunately have to be cancelled. Further cancellations are inevitable given the adverse weather conditions at other airports around Europe.

We ask that all passengers please check the status of their flight with their airline before they leave for the airport.

We have over 200 additional customer services staff at Heathrow today to assist passengers as they come through the airport.

That one phrase – "Heathrow runs at almost 100% capacity" – is a valuable to remember when considering how the airport copes with bad weather.

Readers have been sharing their pictures of the snow blanketing the UK.

To share your picture with us, post it to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #guardiansnow (make sure location services are turned on) to see it in a gallery here. or upload it to Flickr with the same tag here.

I was at Heathrow yesterday in Terminal 1 and it was not a pretty sight. To start with BA did not seem to have a full contingent of check in staff working the desks, with many left empty. It didn't help that they had combined 'speedy drop', those passengers already booked in with tickets, with those that had not. This resulted in an average queue time of about 55 minutes before you could even check your luggage in.

Once inside the departure lounge, it was clear that there were problems, as it was so overcrowded. Flight information was sparse with people being informed to check the display monitors. After two hours of waiting in the departure lounge, BA indicated that the flight to Hanover was cancelled. There was no public announcement or information and Heathrow staff where really unable to give any information except to advise to seek assistance from BA.

The BA customer care desk in departures closed after this cancellation and we were told to go and retrieve our luggage. BA luggage handlers in arrivals were unaware that the flight had even been cancelled. Then had to return to departures to queue for another 1hr and 30 minutes at BA customer care.

We were told that there was no hotel accommodation available and to return today to see if they could get us on a flight. Some people were facing a second day of flight cancellation, with one man saying that he had now missed a cruise trip which he had planned and saved for for some considerable time. BA staff simply did not seem to have up to date information and no one could access their website to rebook or the customer service number which was given out.

Apparently in terminal 5 they were distributing foam beds for people to sleep on the floor. I effectively was at the airport from 3pm until 9.30pm and it was not pleasant. I cannot imagine what it must have felt like for people that were now into their second or third day of this.

Our former northern editor, Martin Wainwright, in London for the day, has snapped this lovely photo of some snowy hire bikes near the Guardian office. Oddly, no one has yet decided to rent one and brave the slushy, icy roads.

One airport I missed out of the initial round-up, Leeds Bradford, reports that while snow is cleared from the runway there are no flights "for a short period". An update is due at 10.30am, they say. Passengers should check with their airline or tour operator.

Arbitrary rule of the day

Seeing as I'm in charge of the blog I'm going to make an appeal: for today only, please, none of the usual dreary complaining about how the UK falls into anarchy at the merest millimetre of snow, no other countries suffer this way, the rest of the world gets about with a spring in its step under 2ft of blizzards etc etc.

It's a popular theme but it's 50% comparing apples and oranges – some nations invest very heavily in snow-beating infrastructure because it's a regular feature of their winter – and 50% nonsense. To take just one example, there were no buses at all in Paris yesterday because of snow.

Last week the north of England was spared the worst of the snow which brought south and eastern England to a standstill. Not any more. Now the bad weather has hit the region with a vengeance.

In Yorkshire, hundreds of schools and nurseries are closed today, and many routes into the county closed or severely disrupted. The M62 is experiencing many problems, with conditions particularly treacherous around Stott Hall Farm, the famous farmhouse in the middle of the motorway between Manchester and Leeds whose owners refused to sell up when the bulldozers arrived in the 1970s.

The Snake Pass, which connects Glossop and Sheffield is closed, as is the Woodhead Pass and Cat and Fiddle near Buxton.

In the Cumbria, snow has hit many routes. The BBC is monitoring the traffic situation in the county here.

Granada News has a round-up of school closures in the North West here.

The Northern Echo is running a live blog on disruptions in the North East here.

On the railways, trains between Manchester Piccadilly and London Euston are facing delays after a train broke down near Congleton travelling between Macclesfield and Stoke-on-Trent. Passengers currently looking at delays of around 40 minutes.

Snow and ice are causing disruption to East Coast services causing delays of up to 30 minutes to East Coast services between London Kings Cross and Berwick-upon-Tweed. East Coast Mainline is updating passengers on Twitter via this hashtag: #SnowEastCoast

Northern Rail is also experiencing problems on many lines. There is severe disruption to services between Morecambe, Lancaster and Leeds, as well as on the Carlisle-Settle-Leeds line. The train operator is running rolling updates on its website.

The Met Office's weather warning page gives a decent idea of where the snow and ice are today. The amber warning section, spanning bits of the north of England and into Scotland, is likely to see beyween10cm and 20cm of snow, with drifting likely in strong winds.

There's a much bigger yellow warning zone for snow, with up to 5cm likely, and in the south of England an alert for icy conditions.

Among a number of anguished Heathrow tweeters, spare a thought for Anushka Asthana, a former colleague at the Observer now at the Times. Travelling alone with her four-month-old baby, she has spent nine hours in two separate stints on planes that ended up not leaving. This is her latest missive.

Schools

Bringing often considerable inconvenience to parents but – and I remember the feeling well – a rush of unexpected, puppy-like joy to suddenly liberated children, hundreds of schools are closed today because of the weather.

If this directly affects you, by now you'll have checked the relevant local authority website. The BBC has a good round-up of what's closed where and reports that at least 500 schools are shut in the West Midlands, 120 in Northamptonshire, 100 in Surrey, more than 90 in Wales and some in the Borders area of Scotland.

Such closures are a controversial issue. In my dual role as interim education editor I received an email over the weekend from an irate headteacher in Shropshire who feels that as long as staff can physically make it to a school it should stay open, leaving the choice to parents.

Airports

A photo tweeted by Louise Pepper, a BBC radio reporter, shows cancellations listed on the departures board at Heathrow airport this morning. Photograph: Louise Pepper/Twitter

And now to the airports:

As you can see from the photo above, all is still not entirely well at Heathrow, where a number of flights were cancelled yesterday, in the main due to low visibility, with some delays as planes queued to be de-iced. Airport officials expect to cancel some 130 flights today, and passengers are urged to check the latest news before they travel.

Southern trains had no services at all first thing between Brighton and Haywards Heath after late-running weekend maintenance delayed de-icing treatments, with an amended timetable running all day.

Rather than brave the icy slush on my bike I used the infamously rickety commuter services of First Capital Connect, popularly known as Britain's least favourite rail operator. My train was on time – but it seems I was lucky – ice has meant no trains at all between Wimbledon and Sutton, with reduced services on the Bedford-Brighton line.

Finally, Eurostar services to France and Belgium are delayed owing to speed restrictions, with some trains cancelled.

Road closures

On the roads, the Highways Agency website is showing just the two confirmed road closures mentioned below, with a smattering of weather-related congestion elsewhere, for example on the M20 near Folkstone in Kent, and on the A595 in Cumbria as traffic approaches the closed A66.

The treacherous driving conditions have, inevitably, led to crashes. One person was killed in Essex on the A12 on Sunday night.

Around the country many are facing a very difficult start to the week, even by standards of a freezing Monday morning in mid-to-late January. As predicted, snow and ice are causing a certain amount of chaos, with the snow falls heading north.

Hundreds of of schools are closed, particularly in the Midlands, and the travel situation is extremely tricky for many.

Heavy snow has closed two major roads across the Pennines, the A628 Woodhead Pass and the A66 between Brough and Bowes.

At Heathrow airport there's likely to be yet more disruption and passengers are advised to check the status of their flights before travelling to the airport.

On the trains snow and, particularly, ice have brought a rash of delays and cancellations. East Coast, Eurostar, First Capital Connect, London Overground, Southeastern, Southern, South West Trains and Virgin trains are all facing disruption.

Whether you're battling to work or still tucked up in bed with a cup of tea, we'll bring you updates throughout the day.